Snowing off and on today, too warm for it to stick, although I hear rumors that some places in the area had as much as 2 inches at one time.
As I was running errands at 5PM I noticed that some gas stations were dropping prices from 2.96 to 2.91; by 5:30 all but one station was at 2.91. Filled up the Gladiator. Filled up Stripez on Saturday at 2.96, ouch. But, when they are on empty ya gotta put gas in.
Darn PPC 6700 is really acting up. Part of the touch screen has died, right in the center. Tried a hard reset, but then couldn't complete the screen align, it was stuck in a loop. Finally located a utility (from CodeFactory) designed for people with vision problems to allow them to bypass the touch screen alignment. I'm waiting for the local UniCel store to decide what to do with the PPC, but I can't go without it, too many people need to talk to me and I keep too much data on it. Having a bad touchscreen makes it much harder to use, but at least it is better than nothing, I know since I went most of the day without it while trying to find a way past the alignment screen. So now the center of the screen is dead and the rest of the screen is not aligned, so it can be EXTREMELY difficult to navigate some screens, but at least I can look at my spreadsheets and notes and make calls from my contacts list (I can also dial from the keyboard if I have to). I've only had it a couple of months now. When I google "6700 screen align" I see that I'm not the only person to experience these problems.
We did get the snow tires installed on the Gladiator, also got the quad hi-beam adapter installed. The daytime running light adapter requires something to activate it, I can actually turn on the lights by running my hand along the wire, presumably I'm inducing a current when I do that. The instructions recommend taping a loop around a spark plug wire which would induce a current, or by tapping it into any source that provides a signal when the engine is running such as the oil pressure gauge. I will need to pull the doghouse off to access a plug wire, so that didn't happen Sunday afternoon, although the rest of the hookup is completed. Matt worked on trying to swap the dimmer switch, but it requires some special wrench (I didn't look at it) which I don't have, so he couldn't complete that and just put it back together.
Between having the headlights properly aligned (first time since we've owned it, 3 years?) and having the quad hi-beams it is almost nice to drive at night. If I can get the holes in the body patched it would look a lot nicer and be a bit warmer inside, and if I can figure out why it is so sensitive to crosswinds and fix that it will be a pleasure to drive day or night. Should try new shocks next, after that will look for a rear sway bar, I know they are available.
Still waiting for the Horizon to get fixed. Matt worked on it Saturday, the engine is now back together and it has brakes, but the fuel lines are rotted out and need to be replaced. Matt also removed the back bumper; the drivers side supports were totally rusted off and apparently there is no place to bolt the bumper to. He was going to replace the bumper with the bumper from the '83, but the problem is not the bumper but the body. So now he needs to find good steel and weld on a plate that the bumper can bolt to. And I was hoping that it would be easier to fix the '89 Horizon than to fix the '83 Horizon. Well, I still don't have a tranny for the '83, but maybe I should start looking.
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